Raine Island - Nature's Cradle on the Edge of the Coral Sea
Satellite Web Cast From Turtle Heaven and Hell
Journal Entry - 12 - 8 - 02 Down Day?
You would think today was a day off.

We were up at five and headed over to the island to film/photograph the turtles at low tide. It was another of nature's grand spectacles. 250-300 boulders just sitting and waiting for the tide to come up enough so they get out over the reef flats into deep water.

Not surprisingly, we saw several turtles headed up the beach when they should have been headed down towards the water. And sadly there were turtles nesting below the high tide line. These nests will be below water at the first high tide and all the eggs submerged and drowned. We watched and photographed a couple of black tip reef sharks cruise the shallows amongst the turtles as the tide rose and then back on the beach encountered a wayward mainland bird - a leadened flycatcher. By 7:30 the
light on the island had become harsh and overwhelming and frankly the heat and humidity too much to bear so we called it a morning.
Later in the day, down the reef, a female cuttle fish tended to the eggs
she had carefully placed in the coral yesterday and I spent a bit of time observing her and shooting with the digital camera. It was a nice dive in a beautiful area of the reef called coral gardens, named for the tremendous variety of corals which are found there.
The tagging team also collected the tags from another two turtles last night - one graph is included. What is so interesting here is how regular the turtle's dive schedule is. It is as if she is on a clock. Also another, important fact came to light, which may help some of our readers understand the importance of this research. Raine Island is thought to be one of a few if not the only green turtle nesting site surrounded by extremely deep water. The conventional wisdom has been that the turtles after experiencing the stresses of laying a clutch of eggs might make extremely deep dives in search of cool water in which to rest and re-energize themselves. This experiment may help to establish the validity of that thought.
© James Cook University / Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service,
Reproduced here with permission.
On the island tonight, with the help of the Raine Island Corp. researchers, we found one of the turtles we had tagged and downloaded the tag data. This will hopefully be available for upload in the future . Dr.Jamie Seymour, of James Cook University in Cairns downloaded the tag data and then went back over to the island to re- attach the tag to a turtle which has laid a clutch of eggs. If all goes to plan we should see this turtle in another fourteen days.

Up again at 5 am to walk the shore and shoot more material of the turtles at low tide and then move through the center of the island with the leader of the Raine Island Corp. team on a guided walk.
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raineexpedition@netcarrier.com
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Photo Captions:
• Low Tide
• Cuttlefish mom.
• Time for a haircut.